


every demon wants his pound of flesh

by openended



Series: i don't look for trouble (but trouble looks for me) [5]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: Aspect of the Nightmare, Best Friends, Fear, Fear Demons (Dragon Age), Friendship, Gen, Insecurity, Krem/f!Inquisitor at the beginning but not enough to put it in the tag, Male Friendship, The Fade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-09
Updated: 2015-10-09
Packaged: 2018-04-25 12:48:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4961239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/openended/pseuds/openended
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>The Nightmare has fed well</i>. A long-forgotten fear takes root in Krem's mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	every demon wants his pound of flesh

**Author's Note:**

> There was a discussion on tumblr about what the Nightmare might say to Krem. Credit for the line (and ultimately the reason for this fic even existing) goes to probablylostrightnow.

Kylie lifts up on her toes and kisses his cheek. “Go talk to him,” she whispers, gently squeezing his hand.

Krem looks down at her and brushes her hair, glowing almost angelic in the morning sun, from her eyes. “I’m fine,” he says. There’s nothing he wants both less _and_ more than to talk to the Chief.

She frowns, and her nose scrunches up in a way that makes Krem want to kiss it. “You haven’t slept in two days.” She sighs a sharp, angry breath. Krem brushes his thumb across her knuckles; the Nightmare wasn’t kind to her, either. 

“And you’re not gonna let the Nightmare go until you hear it from the Chief’s mouth.”

Krem squints out over the courtyard. Chief’s in the corner, dragging practice dummies away from the wall and into a line underneath the sunshine. There’s hardly anything more immovable than Kylie when she’s right, and Krem exhales slowly. His breath hangs frosty in the air for half a moment before fading. He gives in. “Alright.”

Kylie gives his hand another squeeze and lets go. “I’ll see you tonight,” she says.

He nods and watches her walk across the courtyard, stopping briefly to talk to Chief when he calls a greeting, toward the tower steps. She’ll be holed up in there all day, in Josephine’s office or around the war table, and Krem doesn’t envy her the avalanche of diplomacy she has to navigate before they leave for the Winter Palace.

He’s still staring, lost in thought, long after she’s disappeared inside and doesn’t notice the Chief standing beside him. With an amused snort, he claps Krem on the back of his shoulder.

“You should marry that girl,” he says.

Despite his mood, Krem smiles. “Someday.”

Chief grins and nods his head toward the practice dummies. “Come on, practice what we did last week and then we’ll try something new.”

Krem falls into line like he hasn’t been awake for two days straight, like he hasn’t been trying to remember the last years in excruciating detail, like he hasn’t been hearing echoes of six words of a lie said by a dead demon. 

This is their time, in the early morning when the sun’s still cold and the others aren’t yet waking up. It’s their time to practice, to plan, to shoot the breeze and apologize to the bartender for any damage done to his tables. Even though those six words have gone round and round in his head for days, so fast and so much he doesn’t think they’ll ever leave, Chief gave him an order. Friendly, informal, almost more of a suggestion, but still an order.

Krem cracks his neck and rolls his shoulders. He swings the practice sword a few times, loosening his muscles before he takes up position in front of a dummy.

***

_He strikes his sword downward, cleaving the head off the last spider, when the Nightmare speaks again. He shivers: its voice grates down his spine in a way that makes him want to curl up under a blanket and stick his fingers in his ears. Beside him, Kylie grimaces._

_Sera spits and curses, as much a continuation of her earlier feelings as a response to the Nightmare taunting her._

_Everything falls into silence again, broken only by the splashing of boots in murky water and the low, howling noise he’s beginning to think is just how the Fade sounds._

_“He’d rather have the eye back,” the Nightmare’s voice booms over the shadowy, sickly landscape._

_Krem freezes in place. His legs turn to blocks of lead, holding him back, unable to move. There’s a rushing noise inside his head, louder and louder and louder still, and he doesn’t hear what else the Nightmare says. It doesn’t matter._

_It’s wrong. It has to be wrong, that can’t be right, and yet those six words stick in the base of his skull and grow; tiny tendrils of a long-forgotten fear climb up the inside of his mind, taking root wherever they can._

_The Nightmare moves on from him and finds a new toy. Hawke yells back at the broken sky, but Krem doesn’t hear her._

_A hand brushes against his and he blinks, able to move again. Kylie laces her fingers with his and squeezes. “It’s wrong,” she whispers, “trust me.”_

_He wants to trust her, so very badly._

***

Krem stares up into the cloudless blue sky, knocked flat onto his ass for the fifth time. He huffs in frustration; it’s an obvious move, an easy block, but he hasn’t been able to defend against it all morning. Chief’s head appears in his view, blocking out the sun and casting a horned shadow onto his face.

“Alright,” Chief says. “What’s bothering you?”

Krem stays lying on the ground. “The Nightmare said something, in the Fade.”

“Fucking demon crap,” Chief growls, and offers Krem his hand. 

He sits up and takes Chief’s hand. Larger, rougher, scarred and missing a few fingers, but as familiar as his own. Chief pulls him to his feet, but not so hard that he stumbles. Just enough that he’s standing.

“Out with it,” he says, when Krem doesn’t immediately say anything. He turns to fuss with the practice dummies, shoving one back into place.

“ _He’d rather have the eye back_ ,” Krem says.

For as long as Krem’s known him, the Iron Bull has always been in motion: fighting, drinking, laughing.

But as soon as the words are out of Krem’s mouth, the Iron Bull goes frighteningly, utterly, _completely_ still.

The silent stillness stretches on, filled with birdsong and wind and the sounds of Skyhold waking.

Krem stares at the unmoving expanse of Chief’s shoulders; thick, corded muscles covered in scars, some very old, and some very new. He doesn’t know what the silence means, if it’s good or if it’s bad or if Chief himself doesn’t know and needs this time to decide, only that he needs to wait it out. Krem focuses on his breathing, keeps himself from fidgeting.

“I wouldn’t,” Chief says.

There’s something new in his voice, a thick tone that Krem doesn’t recognize. But the knot in Krem’s stomach that has grown steadily larger and tighter since it formed in the Fade starts to loosen.

***

_Krem sits up, increasingly confident in the idea that he is not actually going to die today. His shoulder hurts and he’s bleeding pretty bad, but head wounds always gush. He pokes at his forehead, satisfying his curiosity: not much more than a scratch, really._

_“Hey,” the voice says, the same one that told the soldiers to knock it off. The same voice that brought muscle and mayhem into the fight and gave Krem half a chance to live._

_Krem looks up, and matches the voice to a face._

_A giant qunari, huge horns poking out of each side of his head. He’s holding the barmaid’s apron against his left eye. “You alright?”_

_“Think so,” Krem says. He’s still a little too in shock over that fact being true, and though he thinks he should probably comment on the eye, the dead guys, and possibly the two broken tables, the connections don’t quite make it there in his brain._

_“Good.” The qunari waves off one of his men who tries to take the balled-up and bloody apron away and get a good look at the eye. “You want a job?”_

_A dark-skinned elf pays off the bartender, while another elf plus a dwarf rummage through the soldiers’ pockets and bags. The people who saved him are a weird sort of group, but they did save him when they didn’t even know him. Might as well pay it back. “Sure.”_

_“Excellent.” The qunari steps forward, around an upturned bench, and offers Krem his hand. “I’m The Iron Bull.”_

_“Cremisius Aclassi,” he says, accepting the hand. He’s tugged upward for a proper handshake. “But ‘Krem’ is just fine.”_

_“Welcome to the Chargers, Krem.”_

***

Finally, Chief turns. He comes around, slowly, to face Krem. Towering over him, but never crowding and never invading, he waits until Krem looks up to speak again.

“You are more important than the eye, Krem.”

It’s the first time in two weeks that Chief hasn’t made an awful pun out of his name. Krem would know what to do with a pun; he knows how to respond to _Krem Puff_ and _Krem de la Krem_ , but instead he has to swallow, has to push back a wild, sudden wave of emotions. Chief’s staring at him like he can see straight through him, holding his gaze with one eye serious enough and honest enough for two. And Krem knows that there aren’t any puns coming to break this moment, but nor will there ever be any regrets.

They’re just Krem and Chief - Cremisius Aclassi and The Iron Bull - and the Nightmare was full of shit.

“Got it?”

“Got it.”

Chief holds his gaze half a second longer and then nods. “Alright. Let’s get some chow and then try this,” he mimes the sweep that’s been plaguing Krem all morning, “again. Yeah?”

Krem smiles. “Sounds great, Chief.”


End file.
